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Knowledge Production in the Arab World: The Impossible Promise
Over recent decades we have witnessed the globalization of research. However, this has yet to translate into a worldwide scientific network, across which competencies and resources can flow freely. Arab countries have strived to join this globalized world and become a ‘knowledge economy,’ yet little time has been invested in the region’s fragmented scientific institutions; institutions that should provide opportunities for individuals to step out on the global stage. Knowledge Production in the Arab World investigates research practices in the Arab world, using multiple case studies from the region with particular focus on Lebanon and Jordan. It depicts the Janus-like face of Arab research, poised between the negative and the positive and faced with two potentially opposing strands; local relevance alongside its internationalization. The book critically assesses the role and dynamics of research and poses questions that are crucial to further our understanding of the very particular case of knowledge production in the Arab region. The book explores research’s relevance and whom it serves, as well as the methodological flaws behind academic rankings and the meaning and application of key concepts such as knowledge society/economy. Providing a detailed and comprehensive examination of knowledge production in the Arab world, this book is of interest to students, scholars and policy makers working on the issues of research practices and status of science in contemporary developing countries.
354 pages, Hardcover
First published February 8, 2016
13 people want to read
About the author
Sari Hanafi
36 books11 followersSari Hanafi is a professor of sociology and Chair at the Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Media Studies, American University of Beirut. He is also the editor-in-chief of Idafat: The Arab Journal of Sociology.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 30, 2018
Projecting Burawoy’s classification (instrumental academic "professional" sociology, instrumental non-academic "policy" sociology, reflexive academic "critical" sociology, and reflexive non-academic "public" sociology), Hanafi and Arvanitis develop another model more suited for Arab world:
1. The global/universalistic moment that necessitates nomothetic approach to produce data and allow for comparison with other social contexts;
2. The local moment where awareness is given significance and the subjectivity of actos and the effects of local cultures become more apparent and require more idiographic approach to all the factors affecting one topic;
3. The semi-normative moment, which resembles public sociology and policy sociology whereby a dialogue is carried out with both society and decision makers; and
4. The normative moment, which is about the moral, the religious and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and requires “engagement with all moral entrepreneurs in the society.”
In fact, most of the CVs of official and high-profile consultants in the Arab world lack any published academic research or an iota of a trace of field work. This highlights an unfortunate divorce between social sciences and social policies, manifested in researchers in public sociology far disconnected from their fellow practitioners of professional sociology. There is only too much policy research in the Arab world, which comes at the expense of both professional and “nonwestern” critical sociologies (i.e. not centered all around Eurocentrism), with public sociology almost nonexistent.
Aside from a few wealthy kingdoms, it is international grants that fund most of social research in the Arab world, with insecure security forces impose relentless censorship on the one hand and dysfunctional legislative bodies fail to realize the need for social research policies. Internationally backed peace process (e.g. Palestine) have warranted some research, while economic liberalism (e.g. Jordan) have led to “structural adjustments” centered on the notion of “empowering civil society” and led to flourishing of social research. Such research is overwhelmingly descriptive and lacking in depth. Lebanon presents a promising model where universities remain the stronghold of scientific research, while its Big Sister Syria enjoys a full-fledged state control of publishing in the social sciences and the humanities. More westward, Egypt represents a unique scientific reality since the Nasserist failed renaissance in the 1950s, and the Maghreb enjoys more robust research bodies, owing in part to the long-standing francophone sociological traditions. One major hindrance remains the lack of incentives for academicians and professors, who are tasked – and indeed over-preoccupied – with primarily teaching labor.
Post-independent Arab social scientists went in two different directions: denouncing colonial sciences on the one hand, and looking into the state of social, economic and cultural dependence characterizing Arab societies. As Tunisian sociologists Abdelwahab Bouhdiba argues, only sociology of development exists in contemporary Arab culture. Arab social scientific agenda is little concerned with epistemology and the “state of the art” of the production of social knowledge. In fact, the entire modern project of modern Arabs, states and intellectual alike, is how to catch up with the West, which has long meant heavy investment in building an omnipotent army, an omnipresent state, and an omniscient popular ideology. A typical Arab intellectual is one who won’t shut up talking about traditions, modernity, despotism, identity, Arab union, but never mentions society or embarks on empirical research.
1. The global/universalistic moment that necessitates nomothetic approach to produce data and allow for comparison with other social contexts;
2. The local moment where awareness is given significance and the subjectivity of actos and the effects of local cultures become more apparent and require more idiographic approach to all the factors affecting one topic;
3. The semi-normative moment, which resembles public sociology and policy sociology whereby a dialogue is carried out with both society and decision makers; and
4. The normative moment, which is about the moral, the religious and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and requires “engagement with all moral entrepreneurs in the society.”
In fact, most of the CVs of official and high-profile consultants in the Arab world lack any published academic research or an iota of a trace of field work. This highlights an unfortunate divorce between social sciences and social policies, manifested in researchers in public sociology far disconnected from their fellow practitioners of professional sociology. There is only too much policy research in the Arab world, which comes at the expense of both professional and “nonwestern” critical sociologies (i.e. not centered all around Eurocentrism), with public sociology almost nonexistent.
Aside from a few wealthy kingdoms, it is international grants that fund most of social research in the Arab world, with insecure security forces impose relentless censorship on the one hand and dysfunctional legislative bodies fail to realize the need for social research policies. Internationally backed peace process (e.g. Palestine) have warranted some research, while economic liberalism (e.g. Jordan) have led to “structural adjustments” centered on the notion of “empowering civil society” and led to flourishing of social research. Such research is overwhelmingly descriptive and lacking in depth. Lebanon presents a promising model where universities remain the stronghold of scientific research, while its Big Sister Syria enjoys a full-fledged state control of publishing in the social sciences and the humanities. More westward, Egypt represents a unique scientific reality since the Nasserist failed renaissance in the 1950s, and the Maghreb enjoys more robust research bodies, owing in part to the long-standing francophone sociological traditions. One major hindrance remains the lack of incentives for academicians and professors, who are tasked – and indeed over-preoccupied – with primarily teaching labor.
Post-independent Arab social scientists went in two different directions: denouncing colonial sciences on the one hand, and looking into the state of social, economic and cultural dependence characterizing Arab societies. As Tunisian sociologists Abdelwahab Bouhdiba argues, only sociology of development exists in contemporary Arab culture. Arab social scientific agenda is little concerned with epistemology and the “state of the art” of the production of social knowledge. In fact, the entire modern project of modern Arabs, states and intellectual alike, is how to catch up with the West, which has long meant heavy investment in building an omnipotent army, an omnipresent state, and an omniscient popular ideology. A typical Arab intellectual is one who won’t shut up talking about traditions, modernity, despotism, identity, Arab union, but never mentions society or embarks on empirical research.
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August 11, 2023Scientific knowledge production & its institutions in Arab countries: from nation-state developments to global private markets of economies.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews